u/CuriousPerson-13

Small apartment ~55m2, don’t have space for a dining table in my kitchen, so I’m hoping to make a living/dining room combo. The room is small already (~10.5m2), but to make it a bigger challenge, it has THREE openings: one door to the office, one opening (no door) to the kitchen and french doors to the balcony. Plus it has a window to the office (the office is an interior room). The doors are on the smaller side (70cm for the regular doors, 100cm for the french doors) and the openings are NOT in scale (IKEA planner wouldn’t let me change their dimensions).

Now: we’re two adults, we generally don’t eat at the dining table, but we watch tv/lounge/eat at the sofa regularly. We also have friends sleep over when visiting, so I was first aiming at a sofa bed, but couldn’t find a compact one that was comfortable as a sofa, and am now working with having a regular loveseat/2-seater couch and space for an inflatable mattress. I plan on having a small table on the enclosed balcony, so we don’t need a big table daily. We have friends over occasionally but fitting 4 at a table would be enough (our previous rental was like that, if more people are around they can either go to the balcony or sit at the couch etc).

Does my current plan seem reasonable? Is that dining table too cramped? Should I say fuck it to the table and just get a big couch lol? Any tips/ideas/product recommendations?

Small apartment ~55m2, don’t have space for a dining table in my kitchen, so I’m hoping to make a living/dining room combo. The room is small already (~10.5m2), but to make it a bigger challenge, it has THREE openings: one door to the office, one opening (no door) to the kitchen and french doors to the balcony. Plus it has a window to the office (the office is an interior room). The doors are on the smaller side (70cm for the regular doors, 100cm for the french doors) and the openings are NOT in scale (IKEA planner wouldn’t let me change their dimensions).

Now: we’re two adults, we generally don’t eat at the dining table, but we watch tv/lounge/eat at the sofa regularly. We also have friends sleep over when visiting, so I was first aiming at a sofa bed, but couldn’t find one that was comfortable as a sofa, and am now working with having a regular loveseat/2-seater couch and space for an inflatable mattress. I plan on having a small table on the enclosed balcony, so we don’t need a big table daily. We have friends over occasionally but fitting 4 at a table would be enough (our previous rental was like that, if more people are around they can either go to the balcony or sit at the couch etc).

Does my current plan seem reasonable? Is that dining table too cramped? Any tips/ideas/product recommendations?

Small apartment \~55m2, don’t have space for a dining table in my kitchen, so I’m hoping to make a living/dining room combo. The room is small already (\~10.5m2), but to make it a bigger challenge, it has THREE openings: one door to the office, one opening (no door) to the kitchen and french doors to the balcony. Plus it has a window to the office (the office is an interior room). The doors are on the smaller side (70cm for the regular doors, 100cm for the french doors) and the openings are NOT in scale (IKEA planner wouldn’t let me change their dimensions).

Now: we’re two adults, we generally don’t eat at the dining table, but we watch tv/lounge/eat at the sofa regularly. We also have friends sleep over when visiting, so I was first aiming at a sofa bed, but couldn’t find one that was comfortable as a sofa, and am now working with having a regular loveseat/2-seater couch and space for an inflatable mattress. I plan on having a small table on the enclosed balcony, so we don’t need a big table daily. We have friends over occasionally but fitting 4 at a table would be enough (our previous rental was like that, if more people are around they can either go to the balcony or sit at the couch etc).

Does my current plan seem reasonable? Is that dining table too cramped? Any tips/ideas/product recommendations?

Small apartment ~55m2, don’t have space for a dining table in my kitchen, so I’m hoping to make a living/dining room combo. The room is small already (~10.5m2), but to make it a bigger challenge, it has THREE openings: one door to the office, one opening (no door) to the kitchen and french doors to the balcony. Plus it has a window to the office (the office is an interior room). The doors are on the smaller side (70cm for the regular doors, 100cm for the french doors) and the openings are NOT in scale (IKEA planner wouldn’t let me change their dimensions).

Now: we’re two adults, we generally don’t eat at the dining table, but we watch tv/lounge/eat at the sofa regularly. We also have friends sleep over when visiting, so I was first aiming at a sofa bed, but couldn’t find one that was comfortable as a sofa, and am now working with having a regular loveseat/2-seater couch and space for an inflatable mattress. I plan on having a small table on the enclosed balcony, so we don’t need a big table daily. We have friends over occasionally but fitting 4 at a table would be enough (our previous rental was like that, if more people are around they can either go to the balcony or sit at the couch etc).

Does my current plan seem reasonable? Is that dining table too cramped? Any tips/ideas/IKEA products recommendations?

Soooo for this sub’s standards this js definitely a very humble kitchen, but let me contextualize: we bought our first apartment last year, 100+ year old, on the smaller side, with some serious remodeling needs. Our challenge: gut and remodel the bathroom and kitchen (including plumbing and electricity), change bedroom flooring, some drywall work, new bathroom window, with a 20-25k EUR budget (excluding furniture and appliances). Further challenge: just as demo started, I had to fly back to my home country because of family health issues and came back only four months later, just in time to see the kitchen be installed! Many new grey hairs later, mission accomplished :)

The old kitchen may have been charming at its heyday with the green cabinets and soapstone sink, but everything was either broken or falling apart so we had to gut everything. I know white kitchens are not for everyone, but as it doesn’t have a direct window, I went with light colours that I knew would work. This worked out well as I had to choose a bunch of stuff while away! Thank god for IKEA’s online kitchen planner! I also don’t plan to be here forever so I’d rather have a “safe” kitchen that will look nice for future renters or buyers.

The contractor estimated around 4k for the kitchen work, IKEA stuff was around 2,5k and I got the dishwasher, induction range, oven and range hood to 1k on a great promotion! Fridge and water heater were already there, so I left space to upgrade fridge in the future. Still missing a microwave! So all in all, less than 10k for the full remodel!

As for the other wall, it’s TBD, we may add an IKEA FORHOJA cart, or a folding table, and some shelves. But I want to test the space a bit before deciding.

The cool thing is, although it’s on the smaller side, it’s 3m2 bigger than our kitchen in our previous rental! Which was also original from the 60s with NO counter space, so both space and functionality wise this has been a huge improvement. As you can see from the pics we’re still somewhat mid renovation and organization, but living in it feels really nice! :)